


On a Scale of One to Volcanic

by what_alchemy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Interracial Relationship, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Meeting the Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 12:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3327560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/pseuds/what_alchemy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a little box burning a hole in Fitz's pocket when his parents ping him over Skype.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On a Scale of One to Volcanic

Fitz’s hair had the unfortunate tendency to frizz when it got too long. He’d never known this before taking up with Mack, since he had kept it quite short ever since he was traumatized as a child by an alarming early ’90s mullet, but Mack had a certain preoccupation with twisting the curls about his fingers both in idle moments and in not-so-idle ones. Fitz wished to encourage Mack’s hands in his hair pretty much at all times, and thus without discussing the matter, he had let his hair grow out a bit. Not beyond SHIELD regulations, of course, but enough so that Mack really had something good to grab on to. Mack didn’t say, but Fitz thought he appreciated it. He could tell by the contented sighs in some situations and deeply satisfied growls in others.

But the whole endeavor left Fitz with a new question he never seemed to have an answer for, even more than a year after starting the whole hair project: how much product was too much?

Fitz was not in the business of personal grooming, or even really looking in the mirror in the morning. But since the onset of frizz he had amassed a whole collection of rubbish to put in his hair: pomade and wax, mousse and cream, gel and serum. He even had a bottle of hair spray he’d used exactly once before getting it in his mouth and choking half to death. None of the items in any amount from a dab to a dollop seemed to be quite was he was going for, and more than once he had had to wash his whole head and start again.

Tonight, he was going to take Mack out to dinner. He was going to present him with a very shiny spanner, and he was going to ask him to marry him. Thus, it was imperative that tonight, his hair was just right. And his bum in these trousers. And his tie. But first: the hair.

He had laid his haul out over his desk and was studying it intently when his computer blooped at him. He looked up and saw that it was his mum ringing him on Skype.

“Oh hell,” Fitz said. He’d lost track of the days and forgotten their Skype appointment completely. He couldn’t even put her off any longer because he’d cancelled their last three and was always rushed on the phone. He glanced at his watch — he had ten minutes before Mack would show up in clothes without grease stains, nudging him along for date night. Fitz fiddled his fingers, took a deep breath, and hit “accept call.” 

“Hi, Mum,” he said. His mother beamed at him and waved. His father sat beside her and waved too, though the scowl on his face was as permanent as ever. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Leo!” his mum said. “Hi, hi!”

“Leo, Christ a’mighty, son,” his dad said. “What the hell is that rubbish heap on your desk? I can’t see your fuckin’ face.”

“Er, just some stuff,” Fitz said. He pushed all his product off to the side. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, Jesus, Alan, could you lay off the bloody cursing?”

“Look who’s talking, eh son?” His dad winked at him, the corners of his mouth almost rallying into a curl. Almost.

“He told the new vicar to fuck right off last Sunday, darling,” his mum said. “I’ll never be able to show my face in town again.”

Fitz’s dad shook his head and cast his eyes skyward. Fitz sighed and sank into his chair to settle in.

“You think her raging atheist arse really gives a steaming shite what those church ladies in their hats think?” Dad said.

“There is such a thing as a _social contract_ , Alan!” Mum shrieked.

“Never forget: Iona Fitz is the woman who told Sheena MacDougal that if she didn’t believe in evolution she could go fuck the missing link.”

“Sheena MacDougal has always been a superior cunt eager to revel in her own ignorance like a pig in shit and you know it, Alan Fitz!” 

Fitz cringed. More than ten years in the States had lowered his tolerance for Scotland’s favorite curse word. He hoped they were too caught up in their argument to notice, or else he’d catch hell for it. 

“Anything I called her, she deserved, Leo darling, make no mistake,” Mum said. She had that determined little furrow in her brow and the pinched mouth that meant Dad would be sleeping on the sofa tonight. Or, Fitz supposed, in the bedroom Fitz used to share with his brother, Calum. 

“Hey Mum, how’s Calum?” he asked. He saw Dad roll his eyes, but Mum brightened right up and straightened in her seat.

“Oh he’s lovely, dear, just lovely,” she said. “He’s teaching in Bath now. He’s just been published in, what was it, Alan?”

“The fucking _British Journal of Applied Science and Technology_ , woman, fuckin’ hell!”

“And did he tell you?” Mum went on as if Dad hadn’t spoken at all. “Emma is pregnant with their third now. Fingers crossed for a girl!” She raised both her hands, middle fingers hooked over index, and nodded vigorously into the camera.

There hadn’t been a girl in the Fitz family for three generations. Probably everyone could use a few by now. The constant waves of testosterone were probably why his mum had gone a bit demented. And of course Calum hadn’t told Fitz a thing about his horrifically smug little family. They weren’t exactly the kind of brothers who spoke to each other, especially after Fitz chose SHIELD over Cambridge and, as Calum put it, “threw away his whole fuckin’ life just to play bloody James Bond.” He’d never even met his nephews. And ever since the accident, well. Fitz might as well not exist to Calum at all.

“That’s nice, Mum,” Fitz said. “How about Grandma?”

“She’s got lumbago,” Dad said. “And arthritis. And diabetes. And I think she’s halfway to losing her mind, you know.”

“She’s gone a bit, er, _anti-Semitic_ ,” Mum said delicately. “I’ve heard that happens to people when they get old.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Fitz said.

“Neither does she,” Dad said, and then threw his head back and laughed so hard the camera shook. Mum rolled her eyes and shook her head. Fitz fidgeted in an effort not to drop his face into his hands.

“What about you, dear?” Mum said. “How’s your hand? And your aphasia?”

“Better when I _don’t talk about it,_ yeah?”

“Darling, you’ve a lovely stiff upper lip and we’re very proud of it, but really, you must confide in someone,” Mum said.

“Mum, I’m _fine_.”

“Just, we worry is all, darling,” his mum said. “You’ve always spent so much time by yourself, and maybe that’s our fault for not finding you some quiet playmates when you were a boy, but are you sure you’ve not gone a bit, erm, _odd?_ ”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Everyone needs companionship, Alan!”

“Look at him, Iona, he’s bloody _fine_ , and if he wants to be alone forever, well, that’s why God made cats!”

“ _Natural selection_ made cats, Alan!”

A hot ball of anger burst in Fitz’s chest.

“I’m not alone!” he said, shrill. “I have someone, and I’m proposing tonight!”

The resulting silence felt thick between the bulkheads. His parents were gaping at him with the same codfish expression. He scowled and waved his hairspray at the screen.

“You interrupted me getting ready, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to go do that and hope I never end up like the two of you!”

“Oh, we love each other very much really, Leo,” Mum said. Dad wrinkled his nose, and Fitz clenched his fists. “You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and then fuck off, darling. Tell us everything about her! How long have you been together? What’s her name? What’s her field of research?”

Fitz felt his heart flip and sink.

“Er.”

“Come on, lad,” Dad said. “You love her, yeah? So don’t be shy and go ahead and brag on her a bit.”

“Is it that Jemma girl, Leo?” Mum asked. 

“Er, no,” Fitz said. 

“Spit it out, Leo!” Dad said.

“It’s not a girl,” he said. “It’s not a she, it’s a he. He’s a he. A man, he. He’s a man, erm. Him.”

The silence settled again, and this time his parents’ mouths had snapped shut and they stared at him with round, shell-shocked eyes. Fitz ground his molars together and averted his eyes to his hair collection. He arranged them into a neat stack before his keyboard. Excruciating seconds passed whilst none of them said anything, and then his father swore under his breath.

“Darling,” his mum said then, “if this is about Jemma, we can certainly get over her being English. We’re over it now! In fact, just the other day we were talking about what a lovely young woman she was, weren’t we Alan? And so _smart_ , yeah? Just perfect for you, even.”

“It’s not Jemma, mum,” Fitz said, trying not to be peevish. “It’s never going to be Jemma.”

“Look, son,” his dad said, one hand raised as if to quell him. “Maybe you’re just a bit confused, never got much attention from the girls and all, messed about with boys a bit, no harm in that, but that’s no reason—”

“This has nothing to do with girls, or, or _messing about_! Jesus, Dad. I know for a fact you love Chatty Man!”

“Chatty Man is hilarious!”

“So what does it matter?” Fitz said. “I fell in love, and I’m happy! That’s all that should matter to you.”

“Oh, darling,” Mum said, hands clasped. “Of course we’re happy for you!”

“As long as you’re the man in the relationship!” Dad said.

“Oh my God,” Fitz muttered.

Mum flung a hand out and slapped Dad’s shoulder.

“Tell us about him, then!” she said. “What’s his name, love?”

“Look, I really have to go, he’s going to be by any minute…”

“Don’t you dare, Leopold Fitz!” Mum’s eyes were bright. “You never talk to us or tell us anything, and all of the sudden we have to learn not only that you’re — you’re _gay_ , but you’re in a serious enough relationship to be proposing marriage and _we never knew any of it!_ So sit your arse down and bloody well _tell us about it_.”

“Erm.”

“You’re upsetting your mother!” Dad said.

How to respond? That they were both upsetting him, not only with their reactions but also with their assumptions and misconceptions, should have been obvious, and it should have been within his rights to declare his upset the same way they declared theirs, and yet he would be the cruel and irrational one if he were to tell them so. He wondered if all parents got like this — more ornery and rigid as they aged, their lifelong incapability of viewing their children as autonomous beings separate from themselves finally coming to a head with conversations like these ones in which they displayed with stunning clarity how little they knew about those children, and how little they really cared about them as individuals beyond the basic biological imperative to propagate the species with their own genetic material. Parents, Fitz had found, were less nurturing than they were proprietary. 

“ _You’re_ upsetting _me_ ,” Fitz said quietly. “I was going to have a lovely night with the man I hoped would agree to marry me, but now I’m—”

Words left him, and his hand shook, and he swallowed down the humidity in his throat. He pushed his hands through his stupid, curly hair, and one of those hands would barely cooperate.

“Darling,” his mum said, her voice soft now. “We’re sorry you’re upset. Do consider our perspective, though? We’re shut out, always. You gave us very, very big news and then you want to go away and not speak to us for another three months. Come now. Be kind, please.”

“It’s always your perspective,” Fitz said. “You’ve never taken the time to consider mine.”

“So _tell us about it_ , lad, Jesus Christ,” Dad said.

Fitz took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He forced the fire in his chest to cool with a slow exhalation. When he opened his eyes again, his parents were peering at him with furrowed brows.

“His name is Alphonso Mackenzie,” Fitz said. To his surprise, he saw his dad perk up, spine gong straight and great bushy eyebrows shooting up.

“Oh, he’s Scottish?” he said. “Well, that’s different, isn’t it, Iona?”

Fitz winced. 

“Er, no,” he said. “He’s, erm, African American. I mean, maybe Scottish, way back, but African American, mostly.” Caribbean American with some Latino thrown in was probably more accurate, but Fitz was loath to bring up the whole socio-cultural difference and further confuse a pair of Scottish pensioners. 

“Oh, Christ, Leo,” his dad said, slapping his own knee and shaking his head. “What are we going to tell your grandma?” 

“Don’t you mean what are we going to tell the neighbors, or Sheena MacDougal, or even each other once poor confused gay race-mixing Leopold has finally hung up on the both of us?”

“Leo—”

“I’m going! And you’re not invited, and Calum and Emma can fuck right off!”

“Leo, stop this!”

Before he could press the “end call” button, his door cracked open and Mack stuck his face in the jamb.

“Hey, Turbo,” he said. “You ready to go, or…”

Fitz stood, yanking a hand through his hair, which probably resembled a Brillo pad left out in the heat by now. He was sure his face was red and steam was coming out his ears, and before he could say anything, Mack slipped into his room and put his big hands on his jaw to cradle his face.

“Hey,” he said gently. “You all right?”

Fitz nodded miserably, bringing his hands up to cover Mack’s. He leaned his forehead against Mack’s chin. 

“You’re not,” Mack said, because he was always calling Fitz on his bluffs.

There came a delicate cough from the direction of the computer, and Fitz pulled out of Mack’s embrace. He looked up to meet Mack’s eyes with what he hoped was a silent apology. Mack quirked his brows minutely but turned to the screen anyway. Fitz peeked and found his mother staring goggle-eyed at Mack while his father looked as flabbergasted as his eyebrows and his jowls would let him.

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” Mack said, turning toward the screen. “Barged right in on you there.”

Fitz allowed himself to keep his eyes closed as long as it took to let out his breath. He faced his computer fully.

“Mum, Dad, this is Mack,” he said. “Mack, this is my mum and dad.”

Mack smiled, warm as ever, and stepped forward as if he could shake their hands.

“I’m really pleased to meet you both,” he said. “I only wish it could be in person.”

And Fitz’s mum _giggled_. 

Fitz’s eyebrows shot up and he watched his dad twist his head around to give her an incredulous look. She did it again, and then covered her mouth with both hands, but everything from her nose upwards went red, even her ears.

“Iona!”

“I can’t help it!” she blurted, and then giggled again. She shielded her eyes with her hands only to peek over them again. “Good _job_ , Leo.”

Mack glanced at him, and Fitz shrugged helplessly. Fitz’s dad was shifting his arse and looking increasingly embarrassed.

“Are you twelve?” he hissed at her. 

“Yes!” Fitz’s mum said, and then laughed out loud without bothering to muffle it this time. “Look at him, Alan, our Leo won the bloody lottery!”

Fitz saw Mack duck his head and suppress a smile. They looked at each other from the corners of their eyes. Something tight and terrible eased its grip around Fit’s diaphragm, but he still felt ruffled and wrong-footed. 

“Actually, ma’am, I think I was the one who won the lottery,” Mack said, and Fitz’s mother squealed. Fitz’s dad sat forward, elbows on knees, hand framing his ears as if he could somehow stop hearing the sounds his wife was making. 

“Oh, please Mack, call me Iona,” she said. Dad dropped his forehead into one hand. “And this is Alan. Ignore him; he’s chuffed really.”

“Glad to hear it, Iona, Alan,” Mack said. He nodded at Fitz’s dad, who sort of waved at him whilst looking at his own knees and turning so red he must be losing feeling in his extremities. Mack clapped Fitz on the shoulder manfully and took another step away. “I’m gonna leave y’all to finish up in here. Sorry again to have interrupted.”

“Mack, don’t, it’s fine,” Fitz said, but Mack only smiled at him. 

“There’s no hurry, right?” he said. He winked at him and darted in lo lay a tiny, quick kiss on the corner of Fitz’s mouth. There came another squeal from the vicinity of the desk. “Come get me when you’re done?”

“Aye,” Fitz said, and then cleared his throat. “I mean, yeah, definitely.” Mack’s eyes went all twinkly and he tucked his lips behind his teeth the way he did when he was trying not to smile. 

“Take your time,” he said, and then he turned and left. When Fitz settled back into his chair and forced himself to look at the screen again, he found his mother attempting to ogle his boyfriend’s arse long after he’d left the room. He shook his head in an attempt to scrub the image from his brain.

“I _am_ confused,” he said.

“I’m not,” his mum said, and then she leaned in to stage-whisper, “How’s the SEX?”

“Och,” Fitz’s dad said.

“Mum, _no_ ,” Fitz said. 

“Just on a scale of one to volcanic, love, what’s the harm? I need to live vicariously, these days.” Again her hand flung out to smack Fitz’s dad in the shoulder. 

Fitz felt his face flame and he shook his head. His dad stared at his mum as though he were gazing into the space-time continuum.

“I’ve got to go,” Fitz said. “I’ve not even finished getting ready.”

“Well, good luck, lad,” Dad said gruffly, not looking at him. “Do let us know how it goes and all.”

“Dad…”

“Nothing!”

“Oh my God, Alan, _really?_ ”

“What?” Fitz said, glancing between his parents. Dad was shooting her meaningful eyebrows whilst Mum cast her gaze upwards even as she rolled her eyes. “What?”

“We’ll leave you to it!” Dad said. “Good night, son!” Fitz watched a blotchy flush steal over his features, and before he could get any further explanation out of him, they were disconnected and Fitz was left alone with his pile of hair care products.

He stood up and paced a little. He took off his tie and put another one on. He took that off and put the first one back on. He took it off altogether. He put one on from the back of his closet and took it off again. He put the first one back on. He read all the fine print in his product collection and got overwhelmed before picking out a bit of pomade at random and touching his fingertips lightly to the surface and rubbing them through his hair. He looked in the mirror, where he found his cheeks splotchy and his hair dissatisfying. Situation normal, he supposed. He’d just hoped tonight would be better. He had hoped tonight he would turn into someone different: someone suave and charismatic and charming. Someone capable of asking a gorgeous man to marry him with positive results. It was a ridiculous thing to think, he supposed. Foolish. He pushed all his product off the desk and into his rubbish bin. He patted the long box in his pocket for the thousandth time to make sure it was still there.

He slipped into a cardigan that matched his tie and strode off towards Mack’s quarters without thinking about how he looked anymore. He thought Mack rather enjoyed the rumpled baby professor look anyway. His brain was fried and he rather thought he’d just like to get it over with, which might not be the best frame of mind to do it in, but his hand was shaking and his heart felt sore and all he wanted was to sink into Mack’s arms, hopefully as his betrothed.

He knocked on Mack’s door and straightened himself up. The door opened and there was Mack, slouched in the jamb with arms crossed and mouth smirking. His eyes, however, were warm as ever. 

“So,” he said. “Those were your parents.”

“Yeah,” Fitz said. He clasped his hands together and twiddled his fingers. “Sorry about them.”

“They seemed all right to me,” Mack said. “Not the, quote, ‘cracked nutbags’ you promised me.”

“They are, though,” Fitz said. “They were giving me shite about being with you until the moment you walked in the door, and then they both lost their minds!”

Mack stepped forward and smoothed his hands over Fitz’s shoulders and down his arms until he took Fitz’s hands in his. Fitz felt himself settle at the touch, and he wondered how he’d ever got by without this man.

“So you come by it honestly,” Mack said.

“Come by what, being a nutbag?”

Mack snorted. 

“ _No_ ,” he said. “Looking at me like you want to swallow me whole.”

Fitz groaned and dropped his head onto Mack’s chest. Mack chuckled, and the vibration rumbled through Fitz.

“I’ll give you my horrible mum,” Fitz said, “but my awful dad was probably trying to kill you with his brain.”

Mack snorted, but he closed his arms around Fitz and rubbed circles into his back.

“Babe, I’ve been cruised too many times not to know what being mentally undressed looks like, even from so-called straight guys.”

“Now you’re just rubbing it in how gorgeous you are,” Fitz said. “Turning unsuspecting old dads into giant queers with a single flex of your muscles.”

“Hey man, I just call it like I see it.”

“Can we not talk about how you’re inspiring my dad’s possible gay crisis right now?” Fitz said. “Can we go out and never speak of this again?”

“That’s not a dude having a crisis,” Mack said. When Fitz made a sour face at him, he lifted his shoulders and bounced his eyebrows. “I’m just saying, those two might get up to more kinky shit than you’re giving them credit for.”

Fitz covered his ears. 

“La la la! La la la!”

“All right, all right, no more parental sex discussions.” Mack tightened his hug and buried his nose in Fitz’s curls. He breathed deep. “What is that, coconut?” he said.

“I guess,” Fitz said, sliding his hands down around Mack’s back. He had no idea which product he’d finally ended up choosing. Now he was going to have to sift through his rubbish to find a coconutty one to salvage.

“S’nice.” Mack brought a hand up to card through Fitz’s hair. Fitz sighed and snuggled further into Mack’s chest.

“Let’s get married,” he said, and then froze. His eyes snapped open and his heart stopped. _Oh fucking fuckery_ , he thought. In his arms, Mack stilled too.

“What was that?” Mack said.

“Er…”

“No take backs,” Mack said. He pulled back enough to look down into Fitz’s face. “Repeat what you just said exactly.”

“Er. Let’s get married?” Fitz said. He tried to smile but it felt thin and lopsided. 

“Is that just an idle thought or are you for real right now?”

“Erm.”

Mack’s mouth turned down and he looked increasingly grim. There was nothing for it. Fitz sank to his knees right there in the corridor. He swallowed and looked up to meet Mack’s eyes, which had gone huge and round.

“So, you know by now I’m not so good with words,” Fitz said. He fumbled to pull out the little box he’d put the spanner in. He popped the box open to reveal it — properly titanium, engraved with Mack’s initials — and was rewarded with a single soft huff of laughter. “And I didn’t want to get you a ring because degloving is real, and not something you should ever Google, and the both of us are engineers who have to be careful with that kind of thing. And I had a better plan than this, I swear I did, but my fool brain and my bloody parents, and—” 

He took a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut. Mack knelt down before him, and when he opened his eyes, it was to find in his field of vision nothing but the love of his life. He let out the breath gone stale in is lungs and found a kernel of peace. 

“Mack,” he said. “When you came into my life, all the weird ragged edges and missing bits filled in and made me feel like a real person, finally. When I look at you, I feel like there’s a universe inside me, and it’s expanding. You make me… bigger. In my heart. I never knew it was possible to feel this way, but I look at you and there’s nothing else. This is the only feeling. So, yes. Yes, I’m asking you to marry me in the least romantic place on Earth, and I’ve probably bungled it up, but I’d very much like to be with you always, so will you? Marry me?”

Mack took the box and laid it aside so he could cup Fitz’s face unencumbered. He kissed him, hot and slow and deep, and Fitz grunted in surprise. His prick, of course, got with the program a bit quicker and went half-mast in his pants in about half a second. When Mack pulled back to let him catch his breath, he said, “Is that a yes, then?”

“It’s a _yes_ , and it’s a _let’s get it done ASAP_ , and it’s a _I’m not even mad at you for doing it before I could because you’re so fucking perfect at it_. So, yes, Turbo, kiss me again.”

He did, and later, when they got into a pair of natty suits and Hunter blubbed like a big girl’s blouse through a ceremony in the woods surrounded by Fitz’s parents and Mack’s whole family and the team and, inexplicably, Hawkeye, he did it again, and again, and again, and he was happy. 

 

**End**


End file.
